Rubber-soled safety shoe



July 31, 1962 L.. T. HILL ETAL RUBBER-sown SAFETY sHoE Filed May 2, 1960 Iazvea'znns: Lawson ZTHzZ, L "Z9 United States Patent O 3,046,680 RUBBER-SOLED SAFETY SHOE Lawson T. Hill and Lawson T. Hill, Jr., Weston, Mass.,

assignors to Hill Bros. Co., Hudson, Mass., a corporation of Massachusetts Filed May 2, 1960, Ser. No. 26,302 1 Claim. (Cl. 36-77) This invention relates to improvements in safety shoes equipped with protective metal reinforcements at the box toe portions thereof, and pertains more particularly to safety shoes having soles of rubber or equivalent resilient material.

The principal purpose of the invention is to provide -a safety shoe affording the desirable flexibility, lightness in weight 'and comfort of :a resilient outsole, and also possessing the necessary rigidity in the toe portion required to satisfy the specifications of a steel box safety shoe.

So far as we are aware, no rubber-soled safety shoe had met the required standards, prior to the development of the shoe herein disclosed. In tests of previous shoes having a steel box and a resilient outsole, the shoes would break out at the juncture of the upper and sole, or the box would lbe pressed downwardly onto the cushion sole and tend to crush the toes of the wearer, under the standard drop test or compression test.

It is accordingly an object of this invention to provide a welted safety shoe equipped with the usual type of steel box and having a resilient outsole so attached to the welt and upper that the welt supports the bottom margins of the steel Abox and prevents excessive depression of the box toward or into the cushion sole under such tests.

Another object is lto provid-e such a shoe lwith a bottoni filler of foam rubber or other highly compressible materials, so that the insole of the shoe may move downwardly under pressure on the box toe and the foot of the wearer, thereby materially decreasing the likelihood that the Itoes and forepart of the foot will be crushed by such pressure. For this purpose, the insole of the shoe is preferably reduced in width at the forepart of the shoe, so that a welt platform may be located under the bottom edges of the steel box.

A recommended embodiment of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIG. 1 is a side elevation of a rubber-soled safety shoe incorporating the aforesaid structural features;

FIG. 2 is a transverse section through the toe portion, taken on line 2--2 of FIG. 1; and

PIG. 3 is Ia perspective view of `a platform welt used in welting the outsole to the upper, and designed and arranged to provide a supporting base for the conventional steel box.

in the embodiment chosen for the purpose of illustration, the safety shoe comprises a leather upper 11 of Bluteher cut, assembled in any usual or ordinary manner to incorporate :a conventional steel box 12 in its toe portion; an insole 113 of leather or other suitable material, having the customary sewing lip 14; a platform welt 15 stitched as usual to the lasting margin of the upper and to the lip of the insole; a sheet-like bottom filler 16, preferably of foam rubber or other soft and easily compressible material; and an outsole 17 of rubber, imitation rubber, or other resilient material which is relatively ilexible and light in weight, las compared `with the leather outsoles heretofore used in safety shoes, and which is cemented to the wide base of the platform welt.

It will be understood that the upper 11 may lbe made of any material suitable for the purpose, 'and in any desired style; for the details of upper construction are not material to the present invention, and the steel box 12 in the toe portion is conventional, as aforesaid. The insole l 3,046,680 Patented July 3K1,

pressure on the forepart of :the foot, is decreased by such spacing.

Such downward movement of the insole is further accommodated by using the relatively soft and easily cornpressible, foam rubber bottom filler 16 which offers less resistance to depression of the insole than a harderiil-lerV or cork or composition material.

An important feature of the improved safety shoe construction is the platform welt 15 which, as shown in FIG. 3, is formed with a relatively wide platform base 19 provided with the stitch groove 20 preferably spaced remote from the inner edge of said Abase portion, and an upstanding flange 21 providing a weather seal and frame support for the upper. In the completed shoe, the platform 19 of the welt extends inwardly a substantial distance beyond the bottom edges 22 of steel box 12, and well under the margin of the insole 13. The relative na'rrowness of the insole with respect to the width of the upper 11 at the forepart of the shoe readily permits such l inward extension of the wide welt platform, particularly when, fas aforesaid, the sewing lip 19 is spaced further inwardly #from the edge of the insole than is customary in such shoes.

As indicated by the arrows in FIG. 2, downward pressure on the toe :portion and steel box tends to move the steel box edges 22, tow-ard the -welt in a region remote from the inner edge of its platform 19, so that a relatively thick portion of the welt 'affords a supporting brace for the bridge of the arched box. Thus, the metal lbox and the yoverlying portion of the upper are not forced directly against the resilient `outsole 17, or toward the welt stitch-V ing, an excessive downward movement of the toe portion of the shoe, under a blow or heavy pressure on the top olf the box toe, is avoided. Thus, the toe portion of the wearers foot is not crushed by such force, and the welt stitches are not broken by the bottom of the steel box.

Moreover, as previously pointed out, the yielding of the cushion tiller 16 further contributes to relief of excessive pressure on the lfoot, for when the -foot is in the shoe, pressure on the top of the box toe will cause the insole to flex downwardly into the resilient filler, so th at the toes of the foot are not pinched against an unyielding insole by such pressure.

Insofar as applicants have been informed, a safety shoe constructed as .above described is the rst and only safety shoe having a resilient outsole which has met the specifications and requirements established by the American Standards Association and preserved its structural integrity under the tests prescribed by that association. A safety shoe thus constructed may be made with a cushion outsole of crepe or blown rubber, natural or synthetic, without detnacting from its performance under such tests; and a light weight crepe sole is much preferred by users of safety shoes.

We claim:

A safety shoe comprising an upper, a metal box incorporated in the toe portion of the upper and having a downwardly `directed bottom margin, a flexible insole, a leather welt stitched to the upper and insole, a resilient outsole secured to said welt, and a Ibottom filler off soft, resilient material disposed between Ithe insole and outsole at the forepart of the shoe; said welt having a base portion extending inwardly lof the shoe a substantial distance relative to said bottom margin of the metal box, and having a.' stitch groove disposed inwardly of the shoe -a substantial distance relative to the edge of said margin; said welt base having an outer portion of substantial thickness in the path of downward movement of said box margin, whereby such downward movement of the box relative to the outsole causes said box-edge to engage fthe thiek portion of the welt at la region remote from stitch groove and remote from said resilient` bottom ller; s aid insole flexible downwardly on the resilient filler when pressure is applied to the top of the metal box with lthe foot in the shoe.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Lovell Apr. 13, 1937 Everston May 9, 1944 Batoheider et al Nov. 20, 1951 Hill July 31, 1956 FOREIGN PATENTS Austria Aug. 11, 1958 France Aug. 6, 1956 

